天美传媒

By President Robert A. Scott

Garden City, NY, April 19, 2006

The most prestigious colleges are called “liberal arts” institutions. Many universities call themselves “liberal arts” institutions听at the core. Many futurists agree that a liberal arts education is the best preparation for work,听citizenship, and family life.听They agree that training is about answers — how to — and that liberal education is about听questions and imagination. In ancient times, the liberal arts were known as the trivium听补苍诲 quadrivium, the seven useful arts, including rhetoric, logic, and quantitative听reasoning.

So, what is a 鈥渓iberal鈥� education? Is it a political leaning? Or is it an approach to听life鈥檚 questions and professional challenges that continuously leads to new questions and听understanding? I think of the liberal arts (and sciences) as liberating – – freeing us from听the provincial origins of time, place, and a single culture. The goal of liberal education is听to teach the ordinary student to become a cultured person and to appreciate other cultures; to develop in students the capacity to assess assumptions and understand the value-laden听choices that await them as citizens, consumers, decision-makers, and arbiters of ethical听alternatives; to inspire students to contemplate the meaning of life and the role of听religion, politics, and economics; to help students develop in their capacity to build a听civilization compatible with the aspirations of human beings and the limitations of the听natural environment; to apply theory to practical problems.

Liberal education helps students gain the confidence to formulate ideas, take听initiative, and solve problems; develop skills in language, learning, and leadership; and听increase their abilities for reasoning in different modes. It helps students to appreciate听the pursuits of pure science and the difference between science and technology. It helps听them fulfill their responsibilities as a citizen in a nation of immigrants. More than any听other form, the liberal arts help us understand nature, the world we meet; culture, the听world we make; and ethics, the systems of thought by which we mediate between the听two.

With liberal learning as I have defined it, students can improve in clear and听graceful expression in written, oral, and visual communication; organizational ability;听tolerance and flexibility; creativity; sensitivity to the concerns of others; and aesthetic听values. Liberal study in this way prepares students to weigh competing arguments and听distinguish between and among fact, faith, and fear as ways of knowing; it frees them and听us from ignorance and apathy. Liberal education fosters imagination, which Albert听Einstein said is even more important than knowledge^1听— although I would add that听knowledge of history, or context, is essential to imagination. Alfred North Whitehead听said, 鈥淚magination is not to be divorced from facts: It is a way of illuminating the facts.鈥�^2听A focus on imagination or 鈥渨onder鈥� underscores the importance of the student and not听just the canon.

Liberal learning is the best preparation for what author Daniel Pink calls the听鈥淐onceptual Age鈥� — the time beyond the Information Age. To succeed in this age, he听says, we 鈥渨ill have to develop鈥�our right-brain creative aptitudes to supplement鈥�our听left-brain logical skills.^3听Pink identifies six aptitudes needed: aesthetic design, story or听narrative, symphony or synthesis, empathy, play, and meaning or purpose.^4听These听aptitudes, I submit, are perfectly aligned with the liberal arts.

To fulfill its potential, a liberal education must also involve experience, in听internships, voluntarism, and study abroad. Only then can the useful elements of the听liberal arts be realized to their fullest before graduation, by using what is learned in one听setting to define and solve problems in another.

This emphasis on liberal education should not suggest a lessening of importance听on professional education. Indeed, Adelphi began preparing teachers at the beginning —听by building professional preparation on a firm foundation of liberal study. That same听philosophy continued with the addition of nursing, social work, psychology, and听business, and the expansion of graduate education.

The connections between liberal learning and professional preparation are听revealed by the four key elements defining a profession: 鈥渁n accepted body of听knowledge, a system for certifying that individuals have mastered that body of听knowledge before they are allowed to practice, commitment to the public good, and an听enforceable code of ethics.鈥�^5听These elements are formed through liberal learning, as here听defined, and the knowledge, skills, abilities, and values we gain from it.

Liberal education is fostered in institutions that serve as curator of the past,听creator of the new, and critic of the status quo. Therefore, it is both liberating and听conservative. It is about freedom but not of necessity about politics. It is the most useful听foundation for continued growth as an individual.

Footnotes

^1听Friedman, Thomas L. The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. New York:听Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005, p. 441.

^2听Bennis, Warren G. and James O鈥橳oole. 鈥淗ow Business Schools Lost Their Way.鈥� 鈥�Harvard Business听Review,鈥� May 2005; p. 102.

^3听Cornish, Edward. Finding Success in the 鈥淐onceptual Age,鈥� a review of A Whole New Mind, by Daniel听H. Pink. TheFuturist, September-October 2005, p. 47.

^4听Cornish, op.cit.

^5听Bennis and O鈥橳oole, op.cit.